Lady Gaga’s MAYHEM is an album that tries everything and ultimately says nothing. There’s pop, and then there’s populist. There’s commercial, and then there’s pandering. There’s accessible, and then there’s reaching for the lowest common denominator. MAYHEM doesn’t just toe the line—it trips over it in its desperate attempt to be everything to everyone, ending up as a sonic wasteland of overproduced bombast and hollow empowerment anthems.
If you were hoping for a return to the daring, avant-pop sensibility that once made Gaga a pop juggernaut, prepare for disappointment. This is pop sensationalism at its most hollow, a poor man’s Madonna clawing for the relevance of 15 years ago. The album leans heavily into a cross between ‘80s Hi-NRG and the maximalist EDM, but instead of the bold reinvention that this might suggest, it feels more like a TikTok-ready algorithm trying to Frankenstein nostalgia into virality.
Sonically, MAYHEM is dense, almost suffocatingly so. Layers upon layers of digital gloss bury any rawness or spontaneity, making it all feel engineered for stadium fist-pumping rather than genuine emotion. Not everything needs to be an anthem, but Gaga (or more likely, her army of songwriters and producers) seems to have forgotten that, shoving down one-note choruses that feel designed to lower the listener’s IQ with each repeated hook.
That’s not to say there aren’t a few objectively solid moments. Killah has an infectious swagger, Abracadabra is the kind of effortless pop magic Gaga used to pull off with ease, and Die With A Smile, featuring Bruno Mars is the kind of radio-friendly ballad that will undoubtedly rack up streams. But it all feels so calculated and stitched together, like a machine-learning exercise in what pop is “supposed” to sound like in 2025, resulting in music that is technically flawless yet completely lifeless.
MAYHEM is the sound of an artist at a crossroads, but instead of choosing a bold new path, Gaga opts for the safe, the synthetic, and the soulless. Maybe the real mayhem is how forgettable it all is.
